It’s Not Just Me

I had a chance to catch up with a high school friend yesterday. What started as a few random texts and an accidental butt-dial turned into an hour-long conversation catching up on major life events and commiserating about the challenges of adult life. At one point she commented on how nice it was that, even though we haven’t talked in years, we could still be on the same page and vent about similar topics. The mark of a true friendship, right?

(For instance, here’s one complaint we had in common: Unless she brings up the topic first, please don’t ever ask a married-but-childless woman if/when she’s planning on having kids. While the question seems innocent enough, the answer is often far too private and intimate for casual conversation. It opens the door to personal, financial, and medical issues – all of which are emotionally charged topics. After fielding that question for seven years myself, I more than understand my friend’s frustrations. Dear world, unless we broach the topic first, please stop putting us through those awkward conversations! OK, sidebar rant complete.)

After we finished comparing stories of uncomfortable conversations about family plans, the topic shifted to the working world. Now, my friend has made a choice to not be active in social media or the internet in general. I doubt she even knows that I have a blog, much less the content of it. And yet, there she was, ranting on about all the educational lines we were fed and how little they matched reality. She was saying all the things I’ve been saying for two years, with her own spin, of course.

Her take was how inaccurately our particular educational background prepared girls and young women for the real world. The private schools and church communities we were raised in taught us to be good at academics and good at relationships, to prepare for marriage and families as we also showed off our intellectual capabilities in the classroom. We’d go to college, graduate, find a job, get married, have kids. That was the life plan we were taught to anticipate.

Our school didn’t prepare us for the struggle of early adulthood. They didn’t tell us that getting any job right out of college would be hard – much less finding the ideal job that played to our strengths or even related to our degree. They didn’t tell us that when it comes to finding work, experience (and connections) matters a lot more than a good GPA, that many students who graduate with academic honors will still struggle a lot to find a job because they lack that oh-so-illusive experience. Our school didn’t teach us about paying our dues, working the grind, building a resume one less-than-ideal job at a time. They also didn’t tell us that many women who want to be stay-at-home-moms wouldn’t be able to afford to live on one salary, so not working wouldn’t be an option for them.

No, we were told that we could do whatever we wanted. We were told that a college degree would be enough to get a good job. And for some reason, kids are still being fed that line. She told me about a conversation she’d had with a recent college graduate who was waiting for the “right” job. This girl had turned down one or two offers already because they didn’t fit exactly what she wanted. My friend was flabbergasted. And she’d had other conversations with college students, strongly urging them to get a job or an internship while still in college so that they could build experience. They told her no, they were going to focus on academics because “that’s what’s really important” right now. Work would just come after.

My friend couldn’t wrap her brain around the idea of passing up a job offer simply because it didn’t mesh exactly with their dreams. She didn’t know how to make these students understand that few employers will care about grades, and that jobs are don’t always “just come” after graduation.

“They’re so used to having things handed to them,” I replied. “They’re told that they can be whatever they want, that they’re inherently something special. Unfortunately, the world doesn’t just hand you success, and not everyone gets to be something special!”

“Or you might be something special,” she chimed in, “but you have to work your a** off to get there.”

And that’s just it. You can be special. You can be great. But it takes work. Years of it. It takes time in jobs that are long and frustrating, hours spent on often menial tasks that may seem below your abilities. When you plan on climbing the ladder, remember you have to start at the bottom and then work your butt off for each step up.

So you take the low-paying teaching job in a stressful demographic, building experience until you find the job that fits your niche better. Or you spend 60 hours a week as an office assistant, possibly for years, until you earn the promotion to title with more responsibility.

One of the reasons my friend and I get along so well is that we’re both no strangers to hard work. We figured it out. We buckled down and put in our time in frustrating, stressful jobs in order to pay the bills. She’s currently working a grueling 60-80 hours a week, but after five years at her company (which initially hired her because she’d worked full-time throughout college and so had the experience they wanted), she’s finally in line to receive the promotion she’s been hoping for and working towards. And the only reason I have the experience I do is through tenacity, fighting for work in each place I’ve lived, taking less-than-ideal jobs when the teaching jobs I wanted weren’t available. I paid the bills that way and supported my husband while he worked his butt off to get to where he wanted to be, too.

Living that way isn’t all bad and frustrating, either. With that work comes pride. For my husband, it’s pride in finally landing the kind of job his work deserves, where his talents will be used and appreciated. For me, it’s pride in a unique skill set and abilities, though I’m still waiting and searching for my ideal niche. For my friend, it’s pride in soon becoming one of the youngest people in her office to achieve a certain job title.

So teachers, when we talk to our students, are we really preparing them for a world after academics? For the work ethic that is required, and the willingness to put in time on the bottom rungs of the ladder? Or are we still telling them that a college degree is enough for them to do whatever they want to do?

Students, pursue your dreams. Work your butt off for them. You can do great things, but don’t assume great things will simply drop into your lap.

It was nice to have that conversation with someone completely unconnected from everything I’ve been doing and saying here. While I already knew I wasn’t alone in these ideas, it was refreshing confirmation that I’m not the only person who thinks the education system failed to prepare my generation for the real world. It’s nice to know that it’s not just me.

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17 thoughts on “It’s Not Just Me”

Unfortunately this blog post encompasses a lot of things I am currently dealing with. College does not do a great job of preparing you for what is ahead, something a lot of my friends and I are starting to realize. Although my friends and I are hard workers, in some ways I still see that we wish we were special and expect things to be handed to us. It is a challenge, however, when you were not raised to do otherwise. I think undergraduate degrees should have mandatory internships or hands-on experiences because the courses are often so broad and do not target what you will be doing in the future.

I’m sorry you’re having to face this, too. I’ve always worried about the disservice the education system does by constantly telling students that they’re “special.” What good does it do to build up an inflated sense of self-worth in a kid, when consequences of that entitlement means failure in adulthood? How does that help them? Employers just don’t work that way! And I agree with your point about internships in college. We need to place a stronger focus on building practical skills and experience for the workforce, rather than just book-knowledge.

Unfortunately, I’m just one voice in a huge educational system. *sigh* I try to talk to my students about it whenever I can, but when everyone else is telling them something else, I don’t know how much they hear me.

I’m in college now while studying to become a teacher, and no one really tells you how difficult life is going to be after graduation. You’re right– it does seem like we’re constantly told we can do anything. It’s refreshing to read something like this. Thanks for the reminder / reality check!

Haha! Whenever I talk to a student who wants to be a teacher, I don’t sugarcoat the profession. I LOVE what I do, but it’s a tough field. The job market is tight, with many good teachers looking for work. The licensing requirements and evaluations are getting more complicated, which takes up a lot of a teacher’s already precious time. And while the payoffs are amazing, they aren’t as tangible as the frustrations. I don’t say that to discourage anyone from going into teaching because it can be awesome, but it’s good to at least go into it with your eyes open!

It’s great that you’re so honest… I think future teachers will really appreciate it.
A teacher/relative of mine just started telling me how horrible IEPs (among other tasks) can be, and I’m slowly understanding how difficult things are behind the scenes. Overall, though, my determination has only increased!
Do you think teaching is as difficult in other countries as it is in America?

I really have no idea, as I’ve never done it myself. It obviously depends on the country, so in some places it could be better, while other places would present a whole new set of challenges. A lot of the challenges in public schools here do come from all the paperwork and regulations, such as IEPs and licensing, so that part would be different, but that’ s not to say other countries don’t have their own struggles, too. Either way, good luck!

This is so true! Life is really hard out of college. I have a job but it is completely different from whatever courses I had studied. And everyday I have to silence that voice that keeps saying ‘this is not for me, this is not for me’!! And as you said, I get that we have to work hard at some frustrating job till we reach where we want. But I just don’t know yet where I want to go in the end! And this endless search reaally brings up the frustration levels!

Students need to be taught to not let school get in the way of true learning.

School should be a foundation to learn research skills, accumulative foundations to different pillars of knowledge (writing, mathematics, sciences), and most importantly how to think critically. All of these skills should allow students to explore creativity and think outside of the box. Sadly, that is not the case. Our system in America is to keep people in the common group of having a job and settling down with a family. There is barely a glimpse of a push toward inspiring children to chase their dreams, which lie in the recesses of their imaginations.

Intelligence is no more than the ability of using all of the skills recorded in your brain to come up with a solution to a problem. We don’t teach children how to be intelligent. Therefore, we don’t help them reach success. We give children the “basics” and shove them along the education path. Of course, there is an exception when dedicated teachers as yourself come along.

So true. You are definitely not the only one at all. I have recently graduated university in the UK (with top grades) and am learning this only too harshly. Clearly the education system in a lot of countries needs to sort this out. The harsh reality of real life, I am sure, would seem much less harsh if we were actually prepared for it by our education systems. x

I literally was having this exact converstation with my father. I was telling him how many of my classmates don’t recognize that the rules of the game change. In college you -know- that if you put in X amount of work you will get X pay-off… every time. But out of university, you have to chase down the opportunity, fight to get it, and even after your “best” effort is put in…. maybe you’ll get the job, maybe not. And that while you are studying, and working in a bit-part job, that you also have to be making opportunities for yourself. Glad to see that there are people who have the same thoughts on life.

What a great blog post! I can completely agree, school and college doesn’t prepare students for the reality of ‘life’.
I think it’s a conception that weirdly enough, some of the older teachers around still believe in, which is why it still keeps on being spouted out at the kids.

As for your friend, I love it when that happens. It’s almost like it was meant to happen, when these accidents occur. Recently I bumped into an old friend who I hadn’t seen for over 6 years, and it was like we’d never been apart! It was brilliant!

Spent my entire school career being told I was going to be a writer of some kind. I now work as a chef. The waiting staff do more writing than I do when they write down yet another cheese toastie for me to whip up. The guidance and real world preparation just isn’t there in schools, in English schools I often feel that the “top set, middle set, lower set” is actually just to separate delicate personalities from the rougher crowd.

I feel the need to say more, but you’ve pretty much encapsulated every feeling I have into one wholesome, warm lump.